With the support of Curtin, both Molly and Claudi completed internships at the Hong-Kong based organisation Redress<\/a>, although at different times during their course. Redress is the world\u2019s largest and most pro-active organisation in sustainable fashion design, and it provided the two Curtin students with an aspirational experience.<\/p>\n Together with friend Shannon Itzstein, Molly and Claudi went on to establish a recycling enterprise called Fibre Economy, which redistributes second-hand workwear from mine sites to those who need them.<\/p>\n \u201cShannon works in WA\u2019s northwest, where she saw a lot of workwear being discarded in good condition, or even brand new,\u201d Molly explains. \u201cMine site workers receive several uniforms each year \u2013 they\u2019re good quality cargo jeans and cotton shirts, but not everyone needs to replace their workwear that often.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019ve arranged for the unwanted clothing to be sent to us. We sort the clothes and send the new and worn jeans to employment charities that help people transition into the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the \u2018unwearable\u2019 items aren\u2019t wasted \u2013 they\u2019re given to Curtin fashion design students for projects in upcycling.<\/p>\n Almost a year later and Fibre Economy is more popular than they\u2019d imagined, with charities across Western Australia and the Northern Territory supporting their initiative.<\/p>\n The rampant consumption of cheap apparel, often called \u2018fast fashion\u2019, is a major contributor to the fashion industry\u2019s shameful environmental impacts. While textile and clothing factories in some countries are known to have caused smog and polluted waterways, less attention has been given to the impact of mass-produced clothing at the other end of its short lifespan.<\/p>\n Fast fashion has caused us to lose our connection with our clothes, Molly believes, with most opting to discard and replace, rather than treat clothes as an investment and make time to mend them.<\/p>\n \u201cI come from a long line of seamstresses, and from a young age my mother instilled in me an appreciation for well-made clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds that although growing up in Margaret River gave her an innate respect for the natural environment and hand-crafted textiles, her passion for sustainable design methods was inspired by Curtin lecturers, Dr Anne Farren<\/a>, Dr Kelsey Ashe Giambazi<\/a> and Jill Morrall.<\/p>\n \u201cAnne is a true a pioneer in sustainable fashion education in Western Australia,\u201d she says, appreciatively.<\/p>\n \u201cWe learned how to upcycle garments and textiles for new designs. Dyeing, rearranging, manipulating. Reworking them on the body \u2013 it\u2019s very creative.<\/p>\n It was also at Curtin that Molly learned \u201cthe ugly truth about the fashion industry\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople used to make do with only four sets of clothes. Now, most fashion consumers wear only a small portion of what they own,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n But the problem of excess isn\u2019t originating in the high-fashion houses of Milan, London, New York and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n While haute couture might be impractical, fanciful and ephemeral, it rarely becomes landfill. And if it does, the textiles that luxury fashion prefers \u00ad\u2013 silk, wool, cashmere and linen \u2013 are all biodegradable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value placed on haute couture, and its tendency to be kept in rotation and admired years after it hits the shelves, is positive,\u201d Molly explains.\u201cMuch of the polyester produced by fast fashion still exists … but mostly in landfill.\u201d<\/p>\n The environmental impacts of non-biodegradable textiles are piling up. Of the 100 billion fashion items produced globally every year, more than 70 per cent will end up in landfill. In Australia alone, the ABC\u2019s War on Waste<\/em><\/a> program has revealed, we discard 6,000 kilograms of clothes every 10 minutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most of that is synthetics like polyester, spandex and nylon \u2013 which may take hundreds of years to break down. And being plastic, polyester will release microplastic pollutants into your washing water and out into the environment, Molly points out.<\/p>\n She\u2019s about to graduate with a degree in fashion design, and has plans to further promote sustainable fashion through creative upcycling workshops and education.<\/p>\n \u201cReducing the environmental impact of the fashion industry has to be consumer-driven. Circular fashion \u2013 where we intercept the clothing at post-consumer stage \u2013 helps to keep the resources in a closed-loop system.<\/p>\n \u201cFibre Economy is a work in progress, but it\u2019s making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world is becoming more aware of the environmental impacts of fast fashion. In Perth, sustainable fashion is being promoted as an important part of the circular economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":8354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,94],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-8351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-fashion"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"Curtin students are always welcome at China Graduate Fashion Week","content":" Curtin is one of the few universities worldwide whose students are invited to exhibit at the prestigious China Graduate Fashion Week. This year, rather than send her designs to China, Curtin student Molly Ryan sent photos with annotations about her methods of textile production and fashion design.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":8744,"id":8744,"title":"Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","filename":"Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/sustainable-fashion-curtin-grads-team-up-for-fibre-economy-workwear\/molly-ryan-hs-1-5-jpg\/","alt":"","author":"4275","description":"","caption":"","name":"molly-ryan-hs-1-5-jpg","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":8351,"date":"2022-07-01 07:32:10","modified":"2022-07-01 07:32:10","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1080,"height":1080,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-740x370.jpg","medium-width":740,"medium-height":370,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-768x768.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-1000x500.jpg","large-width":1000,"large-height":500,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","1536x1536-width":1080,"1536x1536-height":1080,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","2048x2048-width":1080,"2048x2048-height":1080,"small":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-480x240.jpg","small-width":480,"small-height":240,"xlarge":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-1080x630.jpg","xlarge-width":1080,"xlarge-height":630,"xxlarge":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-1080x760.jpg","xxlarge-width":1080,"xxlarge-height":760,"hd":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5-1080x960.jpg","hd-width":1080,"hd-height":960,"uhd":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Molly-Ryan-HS-1-5.jpg","uhd-width":1080,"uhd-height":1080}}},"related_courses":[{"title":"Fashion Design","qualification":"Bachelor of Design (Fashion Design)","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/study\/offering\/course-ug-fashion-design-major--mjru-fashn\/","description":"Weave together art, culture and your passion for design to produce your own contemporary garment line. Fashion designers apply principles of design to create contemporary and innovative garments and accessories. This course appeals to creative, motivated people with a keen interest in fashion and a passion for contemporary design.","faculty":"Humanities"}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/FibreEconomy\u2013Shannon-Claudi-Molly-1588x840px-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"Green","display_name":"Karen Green"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 00:00:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8351"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=8351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Fibre-Economy-workwear-being-sorted-792x420.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Garment-by-Talisa-Jamaldeen-792x420.jpg\")
No time for fast fashion<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Anecdotes-le-Femme-by-Molly-Ryan.jpg\")